L'Esprit de L'Escalier
by Nookienostradamus
Summary: Some people's complete interior lives are made up of the things they wish they had said but did not. Looking at the uncomplicated satisfaction scrawled freehand all over Sherlock's face, John decided for the thousandth painful time that leaving things unsaid was not a problem with which the man was burdened. Prequel to Concerning Human Understanding.


Some people's complete interior lives are made up of the things they wish they had said but did not. Looking at the uncomplicated satisfaction scrawled freehand all over Sherlock's face, John decided for the thousandth painful time that leaving things unsaid was not a problem with which the man was burdened. In fact, by that token, it could be concluded that Sherlock Holmes did not have much of an interior life at all.

Which, of course, was not true. Sherlock was all interior, a house of rooms that never shifted. John had read somewhere that there was a mansion in America, in California, that the mad owners had just kept building until their deaths. Adding for the sake of addition, tacking on secret corridors and rooms and staircases leading to nowhere. The precise opposite of Sherlock. His manor was finite, with limited space, and whatever was outside the house was outside permanently. There were no additions; Sherlock would consider it grotesque, asymmetric.

Watching him sit inside that house, his body surrounded by the cab and its smells of vinyl and incense, John hated himself yet again for wondering whether he'd only thought he had a foot in the door when truly he was exiled on the lawn, looking expectant at blank windows.

One thing John knew was that Sherlock was not thinking over the case. That was over and done with, as sterile a subject for rumination as the world before one's birth. For all his constant thought, Sherlock was the least ruminating creature in existence. He was probably pondering botany, or forensic computing, Greek phraseology-who the hell knew?

His silence was always loaded, curled round itself like a housecat, staring at spiderwebbed corners in apathetic repose. Counting down with the sad little gaggle of synaptic impulses that cat aficionados mislabel "planning," until it perpetrates some hidden ambush then vomits its prize all over your bed linens. Sherlock's mind was the unwound clock that kept erratic time between explosions of devastating precision.

Actually, John thought, the clock metaphor was pretty wretched. A stopped clock, as the old chestnut goes, is right at least twice a day, and the problem with it being that Sherlock was always right, defying any logic.

Ludicrous, embarrassing, insensitive, and spot-on.

And because of that, the chock-a-block piles of unused responses kept building up in John's head. Determined not to shift in his seat, wedged as close against the door of the cab as possible, he watched the elongated bars of light from streetlamps and neon signs tap out a code across Sherlock's mouth. Sherlock whispered answers to them. Any sound was crushed by the sluice of the taxi's tyres through the collected rain.

"Right, then," John said. "I'll get out here, thanks."

"Why? There are seven and a half blocks to go," said Sherlock. "If our driver takes the sensible route, which, upon consideration, is not likely."

"I'm going for Tandoori."

"You eat when you're angry."

"No, Sherlock. I'm angry when I'm angry. I eat because I have to."

"Are you angry?"

"Right here is just fine," John said, tugging at the door handle.

The cabbie flicked his gaze into the rearview mirror, and pulled over.

John was still yanking at the door handle when Sherlock, all legs and whirling fabric, unfolded himself onto the sidewalk. Moving air from the slamming cab door hit John in the face.

"Erm...I can't seem to open this door," John told the cabbie.

"Safety lock. It must be opened from the outside," the man said. "Twenty pounds fifty."

John sighed, released the door handle, and fumbled thirty quid from his wallet. Sherlock was still standing, arms crossed, on the sidewalk, looking ahead down the street. "Fine. Yes. Great." John scooted across the seat and opened the door.

Sherlock stepped out of the way of its swing. "We can get take-away if we must," he said."There's kebabs on the corner and the flat's not-"

"If it's all the same to you, Sherlock, I'd rather eat alone."

"You _are_ angry."

The cabbie, after a final look back, drove off in a puff of black exhaust. John's steps broke the miasma apart before it could twine around Sherlock's ankles. Everything had an affinity for the man, and John was in no mood to see the fact in evidence. "Oh, for God's sake," he said.

"If this is about what I said to Christine Fallows," Sherlock said, strides long and effortless next to John's huffing, "it was the truth. Her husband was, indeed, unfaithful because she's got terminal cancer. It's hardly my fault she mistook the identity of the mistress and tried to poison the wrong woman."

"What I'm saying is that you didn't have to say it."

"What? Nonsense! Of course I did. If I hadn't said it, do you think Lestrade would have figured it out? Hardly."

"No," John said. "You didn't have to tell Christine Fallows exactly why her husband was cheating."

"Why not?" Sherlock asked. "She knew it. She said it herself."

"Knowing it and hearing it from someone else are not the same thing," John said. "You broke her down. Ruined what little scraps of pride she had left. I'm just saying it wasn't necessary."

"Well, she won't be miserable for long, now, will she?" Sherlock said.

John turned on his heel and went into a corner shop, flinging the door open with such force that the string of bells mounted above it smacked hard into the reinforced glass.

He was staring at the names printed on cases of lager at the back wall, unable to read any of them, when Sherlock put his head in.

"What are you doing?"

John unclenched his fist. "If I'm to make it through the night without yet another attempted murder, I'm going to need a drink."

"Good, then," Sherlock said. "I'll see you back at the flat."

The young woman at the counter favored John with hooded eyes, steeped in knowing. "You two having a quarrel?" she asked.

"When are we not?" John got out, exasperated, until he realised just how it sounded. "I mean, he's a difficult man to get on with. My flatmate. We're flatmates. Not a couple."

The girl nodded and pursed her lips, but said no more as she rang up the beer.

When John made his slow way up the stairs at 221B, Sherlock was staring into the refrigerator, bent at the waist with his head nearly inside.

"_Rhizopus stolonifer_," Sherlock said.

"Whatever that means, I hope it isn't a barrier to keeping my beer cold,"

"Bread mould," said Sherlock, his voice clanging around inside the compartment, mimicking the jostle of bottles in the bag John carried. "I know that smell. But why would it be in the refrigerator? One keeps bread in a bread box, not in the refrigerator. Do you keep bread in here?"

"I can't keep anything in there, Sherlock," John said, setting the bag down on the floor beside him. "I am locked out." This he said mainly to himself.

"We'll have to clean it," Sherlock said. "What do you clean a refrigerator with? I'll ask Mrs. Hudson." Index finger extended, he strode toward the stairwell.

"Sherlock!"

He spun. "I'll shut the refrigerator door when I return. I need her to see this."

"Sherlock, it's half midnight."

"Oh, yes. I suppose it'll wait. I wouldn't put anything in there, though."

John rolled his eyes and extracted a single bottle, then set the package, bag and all, on the top shelf. He walked past Sherlock and into the drawing room. The lager was awful, and close to piss-warm, but it put a damper on the formless unrest in his gut. It seemed to have grown since he had exited the cab seven (and a half!) blocks from Baker Street, and he struggled to pin down the source; it wasn't just Sherlock's casual devastation of Christine Fallows.

"Idiopathic," Sherlock said.

"What?"

"Idiopathic. Meaning 'of mysterious or unknown origin.'"

It was far from the first time John had strongly suspected Sherlock could read his mind. "What are you on about?"

"The mould, John. The bread mould. Idiopathic in nature. I can't remember the last time we had bread."

Sherlock flopped into the armchair by the window, sending a halfhearted puff of dust swirling into the lamplight. "What, exactly, is the difference between saying something yourself and hearing it from someone else?" He said. "I don't see as there should be a difference. I merely repeated what she had said right back her. In fact, I understand it's a common therapeutic technique, echoing back the same sentiment. I didn't even phrase it differently, pronouns aside."

John shook his head, took another pull on the lager. He grimaced and set it aside. "You said it to her two days after she said it. It's sort of...I don't know. Like, the external confirmation makes it real."

"It was real. Christine Fallows' husband left her because she was dying."

"Then why say it again?"

"Why not?"

"It's cruel, Sherlock."

"Cruel?" he said. "She was a would-be murderer!"

"Well, then," John said, "take the cruel things you say to people who aren't would-be murderers. Like Donovan. Or Molly."

"Donovan says cruel things to me. I brush them off, just as she should."

"But do you ever regret the things you say?"

John had often seen the look that came across Sherlock's face then, but it had not once yet failed to irritate him: the scowl, the wrinkled nose: utter disdain. "Why would I regret having said something? I would think you would only regret things you haven't said."

"Which, of course, is not an issue for you," John said, "as you say everything that enters your head."

A pause.

"I keep some things to myself," Sherlock said.

"When? When have you ever not spoken exactly what's on your mind, without a thought to the consequences?"

"More often than you'd think," Sherlock said. "As a matter of fact, I'm keeping something from you right now."

"Bloody hell, Sherlock," said John. "You are such a child."

"There. That was cruel. And yet you said it. Do you regret saying it?"

John stopped the progress of the warm beer bottle halfway to his lips. "I-ah. Actually, yes. I do. And I'm sorry."

"Why do you regret it?" Sherlock asked. "It's not even true. Not like what I said to Christine Fallows."

John had to smile. "Because it it is true, and it's not true."

"That doesn't make any sense at all. You think I'm a child, but you don't think I'm a child?"

"It's both true and not true because of what it implies, not because of what it means."

"Well, what does it mean?" Sherlock asked.

"It means that, despite your flaws-and believe me, there are many-I am quite fond of you, you clueless bastard."

The slamming down of a look of mild disinterest on Sherlock's part was, nonetheless, not abrupt enough to cover the momentary stumble into straight gobsmacked awe. John was certain he could still have seen the preconceptions crumbling merrily away behind the blue eyes had Sherlock not turned, pretending to be very interested in something outside the window.

And later, an hour or so removed, when a dressing gown-clad Sherlock stood at his shoulder as he blogged and rested the fingertips of one hand on John's knuckles, not even hard enough to press the keys, but still for a very long while, John thought:

_Well_.

He hated to admit yet again that Sherlock was right, but he did feel quite a bit better for having said it.


End file.
